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^^^ Current Journal Entries: [a] I Grew up in Milan, not Suburbia <^><^> [a] College Increasingly Unaffordable <^><^> [a] Crushes Revisited <^><^> [a] Self-Hating Feminist? <^><^> [a] Sugar and Spice, and Everything Nice <^><^> [g] Guest Entry <^><^> [a] I Swear I'm Not an Anarchist, Really <^><^> [a] Drawings of My Neighborhood, and One of the Kitchen <^><^> <^><^><^><^><^> ^^^ September 22, 2004         I Grew up in Milan, not Suburbia [asfo_del] When I was in junior high school, I lived in Milan, Italy, a beautiful old city filled with wonders like narrow, cobbled side streets, sooty stone buildings hundreds of years old, an immense, spiky-topped gothic cathedral right in the center of downtown, whose huge plaza I crossed every day coming home from school, with a sense of elation at its windswept vastness. The political situation in Italy was tense at the time, the mid-to-late seventies, with the Communist party very close to having a majority in every election, but always falling short. Political graffiti was everywhere, the red circled stars of the Red Brigades spray-painted all over along the city’s streets. There was a demonstration downtown almost every Saturday. Sometimes riots broke out. Around election time, buildings were papered with political party posters, which were made up of just the party’s logo and its initials. They were beautifully stark and seemed filled with intensity and possibilities. I was a twelve-year-old kid, but politics was just such a part of life you couldn’t not know about it. So how do I relate to people who grew up as disaffected suburban American teens? Actually, I’m jealous of them because they seem to have had so much more fun than I did. Even when their stories are made up of dismal late nights spent hanging out in the parking lot of a 7-11, smoking cigarettes and telling dirty jokes, bravely pretending to be having a good time, all of that has become such a cultural archetype that it seems somehow inspiring and worthy. If your adolescence sucked at least you have something to write songs about, filled with rage and displaced hope. My adolescence sucked too, but who can relate to having been all over some of the world? It certainly doesn't sound like it sucks. It's incredibly spoiled to complain about a ridiculous amount of privilege. I never had anything to do in junior high school, except schoolwork, which I loathed deeply, even though I was a fraudulently excellent student. I hated studying and I hated the anxiety of never being sure if I could still do well when I had done the barest minimum I thought I could get away with. Would my teachers catch on that I was not actually dutiful but truly hated all the crap that I executed so irreproachably? I spent hours sitting at a huge white formica table in my room with my books open in front of me, daydreaming, looking out the window at the utterly uninteresting windows across the street, and idly drawing on the tabletop in pencil -- drawings which could be wiped clean by just licking your finger and rubbing them off. There was nothing else. That was my life. Home, school. School, home. I felt lonely and ridiculous. I didn’t dare break out of my tightly circumscribed shell. I didn't want to upset my parents, who were so anxious, and I wouldn't have known how to change my life in any case. I wanted to hang out and laugh and tell funny stories, but I didn’t. There was no one for me to hang out with. I wasn’t entirely friendless. My little friend Mary Ellen and I were inseparable. We would go out every Saturday to wander around the city -- yes, in spite of the frequent riots, strange as that may seem in retrospect. We would go “shopping,” though we never bought anything. We just visited our favorite stores and looked at stuff on the shelves. One was a hidden-away glass shop that sold all manner of hand-blown bottles and bowls stacked end-to-end in a kind of underground cellar. Another was a trendy shop called Gadgets, in English, that sold stuff like lava lamps and funny gags, some of them really dirty, like a toy called “The Merry Monk,” which would get an erection under its plastic robe if you turned a crank. We also went to the cosmetic counters at department stores to dip our fingers into the samples and smear colors onto each other. She had two much-older brothers, battle-worn hippie types who joked around with her easygoing parents. They were kind of a hip family. She was allowed to draw on the walls in her bedroom. I had no particular curfew, but I would sometimes get home with my mom freaking out in a panic because she didn’t know where I was, especially if it was after dark -- which means, at least in winter, that I was getting home at the late hour of 5 o’clock in the evening. I reacted to this not by rebelling, but by panicking that I was upsetting my mom. I’ve been to so many places, I could pretend that my life has been exciting. I’ve ridden on a narrow wooden outboard down the Amazon, when I was seventeen, to where the black waters of the Rio Negro meet the murky brown waters of the Amazonas, and they don’t blend but continue as two separate, differently colored stripes, for miles. There are dolphins in the Amazon river; you can see them jumping out of the water. When I was around twelve, we spent several summers on the Italian island of Sardinia, where the sea is such a crystalline turquoise you can see fish swimming around your ankles like it was an aquarium. We went out at night on a Zodiac to lay down a fishing net, inspecting the sea bottom with a lantern to seek out the sandy spots. The plankton [I think that's what it is] fluoresces like sparks anytime you touch the water at night. I’m not ungrateful. The images of the places you’ve been you carry around with you always. I apologize for my privilege. I apologize for being jealous of the nights spent outside the 7-11 by kids who had none of what I had. When we lived in Italy, which was before I turned 14, we would spend New Year’s at a ski resort town, in my aunt’s luxurious apartment decorated in black leather and chrome and a real zebra-skin rug, with real modern art on the walls, all of it paintings by one artist friend of my aunt’s and uncle’s: incredibly vivid and beautiful scrawls of landscapes and vases, in gleaming colors oozed straight out of the tube. [My aunt and uncle are actually wealthy; my own family were comfortably middle class.] I remember looking out the window and seeing some kids uncorking a bottle of cheap champagne under a street light, in the falling snow, laughing and hollering, and it made me cry with rage. Again, sorry. I am an ass. ::=::=::=::=::=::=::=::=::=:: ^^^ September 20, 2004         College Increasingly Unaffordable [asfo_del] [Found via Infoshop News] A recent report gives American colleges an F in affordability. Not surprising, really, considering how ridiculously expensive a college education has become, not only at fancy, prestigious colleges, but at any and every college. The study, by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, "grades affordability in part by comparing net college costs with the average family income in each state.... In New Hampshire, for instance, college costs amount to 32 percent of average family income.... In New Jersey and Oregon, colleges cost 34 percent of family income." That's pretty mind-boggling, that an average family would have to spend fully one third of their income to send a kid to college. And there's no mention of poor families, for whom college is not even in the realm of possibility. I was talking about this very issue with one of Mike's friends, who came to stay with us during the RNC. He's an incredibly smart and funny person [though his funniness is not really relevant here...] and a high school history teacher. His view is that a college-educated population is a threat to the powerful. Look what happened following the economic boom of the fifties: parents could suddenly afford to send their kids to college in droves, and what did those kids do? They rose up against the Vietnam war, racism, sexism, the capitalist system, and the oppressive social conditioning of the time. Oops, can't have that. Better make college out of reach. [-]-[-]-[-]-[-]-[-]-[-] ^^^ September 16, 2004         Crushes Revisited [asfo_del] A while back, I wrote a fairly light and silly post about crushes. I didn't really bother to explain myself very carefully because I thought I was writing about the stuff that clichés are made of. But I got into trouble for leaving unexamined assumptions to dangle alone, and some people were offended by them. I'm not sure if I should dare venture into this territory again, but I think it's an interesting subject because its crux, it seems to me, is the forbidden expression of sexuality and desire of very young women, and, really, all women. Now, let me say that I am not implying that men and boys don't get crushes too, even if it's only for lack of a better word that would distinguish how differently men and women experience falling in love and becoming crazy-obsessed with the object of their affection. I'm not actually going to say much of anything about boy crushes, because I just don't know. All I'll say is that in literature and movies, boys who develop an obsession for a girl who cares not a whit about them are generally represented as heroic figures, and their tragically ineffectual antics, like riding their bikes past her house twenty times a day, as heartbreaking and brave, and touchingly pathetic. [The character Ducky (Jon Cryer) from Pretty in Pink alludes to having done this. And, by the way, I never could understand why Molly Ringwald didn't want to be with him, when he was so great and sweet and totally adoring of her, and instead swooned over that expressionless fop played by Andrew McCarthy, who didn't even have enough respect for her to avoid subjecting her to his sleazy friends.] Girls with crushes, on the other hand, are objects of harsh pity and ridicule. This is from a web site that, as far as I can tell, is an advice site for teenagers: "Young people, particularly teenage girls, often have crushes on people they don't know personally, usually a famous ... star.... 'Looking back, it seems silly. I wasted almost two years having a serious crush on a famous singer and he still doesn't know I exist! I thought I really loved him but I now know I was wrong.' " You were wrong! Your feelings are scum and you were wrong to have them. They are a waste of time, and silly to boot. What a great message to send to a kid who is desperately in love, even if it is with someone who will never love her back. "There's nothing wrong with having a crush on someone. Within limits it's a purely harmless pastime and a good emotional rehearsal for when we're ready for the 'real thing'. But getting stressed or upset about it is a bit like being angry because your favourite doll doesn't speak to you!... Aren't you just wasting your time? Aren't you just hurting yourself for no reason? You may find out that you are." Hear that? Your feelings are a waste of time. Your desperate, unrequited affection is a meaningless, ridiculous pastime, and it's fake, you idiot, and if you get emotional about it you're stupid, just as stupid as if you expected your lifeless, plastic dolls to be your friends. That's pretty damn harsh. It seems to me that what makes girls' crushes so anguished is specifically this notion that it's wrong to feel how you feel. That being in love with someone who will most likely never love you back is shameful. So shameful that you should make every effort to hide and deny it, even to yourself. And because a crush is an obsessive, recurring preoccupation, every time the thought occurs it's followed by an internal litany of denials that end up making you feel all twisted up in knots, not knowing what it is that you feel anymore, whether it's love or idiocy, admiration, envy, anger, self-loathing, or lust.... And admitting to wanting him sexually is entirely unacceptable, therefore it has to be sublimated into some kind of silliness, like drawing hearts around his name or inventing secret stories that you never share with anyone, in which he is the protagonist. There are magazines for girls who are actually designed to fulfill this very purpose. Magazines that are nothing but adorable pictures of cute, famous boys, groomed by the industry that sells their image and makes a lot of money off it to look like harmless little fluffy puppy dogs. I guess this type of teenage infatuation is acceptable because it's safe to adults, since the girls who save these pictures and hang them up on their bedroom walls have no chance of actually having sex with these guys. But you know what, if you're desperately in love with Justin Timberlake -- or whoever it is that is popular right now -- , it's true that he will never know you, but your feelings are completely real. I thought that the subject of teenage girls' sexuality was actually a fairly popular topic in feminist literature, but I couldn't really find that much about it on the web. [Maybe I just didn't think of the right key words to search under?] This is an interesting review of Naomi Wolf's book, Promiscuities, which I haven't read. The reviewer found the author's promise of revealing the truth about teenage girls' sexuality to have been left disappointingly unfulfilled. "She asserts that women are afraid to tell their sexual stories because they include elements of "greed, danger and narcissism, insecurity and bad behavior" - but leaves those same elements out of the stories she chooses to tell." "She states repeatedly that female sexual desire is a forbidden topic, but delicately refrains from mentioning masturbation and only alludes to sexual fantasies, both of which are surely key to any honest discussion of female sexuality." [And I ain't talking about none of that neither....] <+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+> ^^^ September 15, 2004         Self-Hating Feminist? [asfo_del] I swear I wanted to write something about the state of the world and stop this self-centered crapola, but I've been browsing the usual news suspects and haven't found any news items of note that didn't have to do with the election or the war in Iraq, and I don't want to write about either because frankly I have nothing to say that hasn't already been said much more knowledgeably by someone else. The war is just appalling; there is nothing but chaos and mounting deaths. And I don't think that whoever wins the election is going to make a whole hell of a lot of difference, as troubling as it is to read that Bush is ahead in the polls after all the evil and lying that he and his cronies have been up to. A cardboard cutout should be able to win against him. What is wrong with Americans? Bah. Anyway, it makes no difference what I write. I should just start a private correspondence with Harry, so that I could understand his insights better rather than their having to be condensed into the space available in the comments section. My last post was actually pretty dishonest because I was afraid of getting into trouble by venturing into territory that has already been much more thoroughly picked apart by feminist thinkers. The truth is that I have a real prejudice and distrust against women who have their hair done and wear perfect makeup. That makes no sense, because I know from experience that the way a person looks on the surface, even insofar as they have intentionally altered their appearance with attire and grooming, has very little to do with who they are. The Simple Living Discussion Forums often have threads about wearing make up, and the general consensus usually seems to be that wearing make up is very bad. But what it boils down to is that in a lot of mainstream circles you are looked down on, as a woman, for not wearing makeup or generally not being well groomed or polished, and in others you are looked down on for doing those very things. Like in serious academia, for instance. Or in radical political circles. And the fact is, of course, that we should all just get over it and let people look however they want. But I'm still not going to trust someone who talks at me pityingly because I look like a drowned rat and therefore assumes that I have no self esteem or must be on drugs. I actually had a cop ask me once, randomly, while I was walking down the street, if I knew the woman who runs the local homeless organization. I think he was trying to figure out if I was a crazy homeless person. But what is really unacceptable about my point of view is that I think it would be pretty great to be a boy. [Should I duck?] I can relate to the angsty rage of boys. I've been listening almost incessantly to The Descendants lately. And they are such boys. [And I'm still trying to figure out if the song Loser contains a homophobic slur, or if that's intended to be self-referential?] [Note written later: the answer appears to be: it's as bad as I thought, but, on the other hand, it was "just goofy teenage stuff," and they have since changed the song's lyrics.] And I think Pervert is really a pretty damned funny song, but maybe I should be thinking it's misogynist: "Don't you sometimes wonder what I want? Don't you sometimes think I just want your cunt?" A lot of what they say in their songs is just so stupid, but in a really smart, self-aware kind of way. If you tell the truth you have to say a lot of stupid stuff, because life is stupid and absurd. The angsty rage of girls I don't really get. One of my favorite albums is Hole's Live Through This, in spite of the many incredibly dumb and embarrassing things that Courtney Love has been reported in the media as having done lately. I saw her play live in 1994, when that album first came out, and it was one of the most amazing spectacles I've ever seen. But I don't particularly relate to her words. She always sings about being perceived as a whore. I've never felt that I am perceived as a whore. [Although that Hole show was the only time at a show that a man randomly stroked the small of my back while I was just standing around minding my own business, and when I glared at him to say, "What the fuck is the matter with you?" he smiled at me coyly, like I was actually going to have a positive reaction to being groped?] [Okay, another anecdote to disprove my own point: Once, when I was working at a music venue, these two middle-aged men came up to the ticket table speaking French, obviously thinking that I wouldn't understand them, which, okay, I actually didn't, but I did hear them use the word "putaine," which means whore. So I said, "What did you say?," and the guy answered, "Oh, nothing, I was talking to him," pointing to his friend. And I said, "You're calling him a whore?" And he was all embarrassed. Asshole.] I've always been much more oppressed by being alone and ignored than by being leered at or overly noticed. Not that I'm condoning men who leer at young women and harass them. It's really awful and creepy. But it certainly isn't a source of my own personal angst. Oh right, so what's my point? I don't have one. I'm drunk. [Not really.] That it's fun to hang out with boys. And I mean grown up boys. You know, men. But boys in the sense that they're just so cute and adorable when they're being all serious and lighting your cigarettes even though it's so windy out it really would be a lot easier to light your own. When I was browsing Google I found a reference to an article in a feminist magazine about the difference and similarity between wanting to be someone and wanting to fuck them, but it wasn't actually available on the web. You had to buy the magazine. It's a pretty obvious subject anyway, so I probably don't need to read the article to pretty much figure out what it says. You know, how women are relegated to a supportive instead of central role in their own lives, whereby being married to a powerful man, for instance, is the next best thing to actually being powerful. Would Hillary Clinton have been a senator if she hadn't first been first lady? =|="=|="=|="=|="=|="=|="=|= ^^^ September 9, 2004         Sugar and Spice, and Everything Nice [asfo_del] In the United States, there is a strong cultural bias that socializes at least some women to be extra-nice, sometimes to the point of not voicing their real feelings or thoughts. That struck me when I first moved to the U.S. at sixteen. I had been going to American schools for ten years by then, but I hadn't known a lot of American adults, except for my teachers, who had pre-selected themselves as unconventional by the very fact that they had chosen to go teach in Brazil or Italy rather than at their local public school. It wasn't until I was actually in this country that I encountered a particular brand of well-meaning, polite-to-a-fault women who became flustered and upset if I simply happened to mention that I didn't like something. Women to whom the mere notion of saying anything remotely negative, if you're a female, is about as indecorous as dropping your pants in public. This observation is by no means universal, but it seems to be a kind of undercurrent that runs parallel with a general Anglo-Saxon behavioral code that you should pretty much always keep everything to yourself, except maybe the occasional noncommittal remark about the weather. I myself was never particularly socialized to be any way at all by my reclusive family. Certainly not to be extra-nice, nor feminine. My mother earned a university degree in electrical engineering in 1953, in Italy; I think she was the only woman in her class in her area of specialization. I have never felt any kind of pressure to be either decorous or decorative. In spite of the anguished, blaring exhortations of women's magazines and television to make myself more attractive, I am not remotely interested in their calls to primp and shrink my waistline. I barely even shower. So am I liberated from the anti-woman, anti-feminist societal imperative to quest for an unattainable standard of beauty? Well, yes, except that it's another way in which my maladjusted life sails along in a lonely parallel universe. I went to a wonderful party last Sunday, a Labor Day barbeque that is hosted every year by one of our friends. I'm a vegetarian, so the idea of attending a barbeque doesn't necessarily fill me with a mouth-watering longing for burgers and sausages, and I usually find social interactions awkward and taxing, so the prospect of talking to people is not generally any more appealing. But I talked with some wonderful people and had a great time. In the about seven hours that I spent there, all the conversations I had were with men. This was not by design, and I'm not sure what to make of it. I'm not even sure if I should be writing about this, because whenever I say anything about gender differences I always get myself into big trouble. In my personal life, I don't share many of the experiences that women can sometimes bond over: I don't feel pressure to be attractive or conform to fashionable ideals of beauty. I don't have any children. I have never been betrayed or disillusioned by a bad romantic relationship. Maybe I'm just more intimidated by women because in some sense I feel that I don't measure up. That sense doesn't come from them, it comes from within me. I can't help feeling apologetic and self-conscious for standing before a woman without even having so much as combed my hair. And maybe I do also feel apologetic about never having been screwed over by a male partner. Not that it's ever too late for that.... A female college professor once told our class that as women we could not identify with characters like Hamlet or Holden Caulfield. Period. But when you're a teenager growing up, Holden Caulfield is about all you've got. Do you have to be a boy to be confused and angry at being jerked around by an adult world over which you have no control? Maybe you just have to be a boy to express it without causing people to swoon in horror. I did an art project once in which I changed the gender pronouns and proper names in The Catcher in the Rye to make the main character a girl. As a girl, Holden's carryings on read like the actions of an escapee from a mental institution. When I was a kid, I would have loved to have been a tomboy, but I wasn't because I was afraid of everything. I spent much of my childhood around water, for instance, and yet I never learned to dive headfirst or swim underwater, even though I really wanted to be able to do those things. There was a cowardly, shameful comfort in the idea that being terrified and inept when it came to physical feats was less noticed and seemed less pathetic in a girl than it would have been in a boy. I could easily pretend that what I really wanted to do was sew. And I actually loved to sew, so it wasn't hard to pull off. I just finished reading a book called Goat, by Brad Land, a memoir about the terrible emotional and physical abuse he endured pledging a fraternity. It boggles the mind that one would feel the need to belong that badly. Growing up as boy in this society is no picnic either. <|>=<|>=<|>=<|>=<|>=<|> ^^^ September 7, 2004         Guest Entry [Guest: "Been Around"] [In reference to comments left on the Aug. 24 blog entry.] I too wonder why the harsh and attacking tone toward asfo_del three years after the fact? Even assuming there was 'bad behavior' by asfo_del (and personally I see no reason to not believe her when she says she did not throw a chair--the only actual act alluded to by anonymous), and she was 'irrational' or whatever,--it seems to me that if the poster who puts her down was really well-meaning, he would be more interested in gently probing for her reasons--especially with the mellowing effect of the passage of time--rather than in recreating the atmosphere of harsh accusations that must have prevailed at that time. Another explanation occurs to me: some people in anti-authoritarian scenes get in the habit of making scapegoats of people who have some very slight authority and on whom they can vent anger that they have toward authority figures in earlier parts of their lives (like their parents) or on whom they can just take out their present frustrations. Women make especially good scapegoats for these purposes as they are often more vulnerable, including to being stereotyped, crazy-baited etc. (the use of the accusation of 'irrational behavior' is a dead give-away here--and when, by the way, did anarchists adopt 'rationalism' as their highest value?) These female scapegoats usually don't have the real power in an organization--but people who are afraid to take on those who really do have this power, can demonize the 'henchman' instead, and vent their rage without much consequence. The person who attacks you, asfo_del, obviously has a vested interest in holding on to the mental configuration of blaming you for whatever. I would guess that doing this fulfilled a psychic need for him at the time and he still needs to hold onto whatever twisted satisfaction he originally got from demonizing you. Perhaps he took a leading role in the attacks on you and feels a need to justify his past behavior, so he keeps on attacking you now. And perhaps this is why the idea that you may have sympathizers who are reading your blog, fills him with rage--so he sneeringly refers to them as your 'fan club'. I strongly urge you to try to see this attack and others like it as part some combination of the unfortunate dynamics described above--which can also become a 'group dynamic' (resulting in little 'gangs' that attack anyone who is 'it', especially if they attempt to make waves by trying to change anything). This might help you to de-personalize it as much as possible--although I know this can only go so far in dealing with the pain of having worked for years (for free!) for an institution whose members were at best insensitive to you and at worst, truly vicious. There are so many stories like this in our counter-culture! I wonder when people in alternative / idealistic scenes will stop doing this sort of thing to each other. I wish you could have had more support at the time. --A Friend <+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+> ^^^ September 3, 2004         I Swear I'm Not an Anarchist, Really [asfo_del] In recent weeks there has been a lot of disinformation in the major media about anarchists and anarchism. I didn't see any of it, since I don't read The New York Post or Daily News and have given up watching television almost entirely, in sheer disgust, about two months ago, but I have seen discussions of the issue, mostly on Infoshop News. There was one particularly [unintentionally] humorous piece by a liberal trying to praise anarchism but making himself look stupid in the process: "The problem is that ugly displays of passion and anger, even when justified by larger crimes, can only serve to undermine the political message that must get through to mainstream America: the Republicans are unreasonable and dangerous. The Democrats are not. Anarchists, violent and otherwise, are not so interested in stressing this distinction, and that in a way is – and always has been – their failure." The Democrats are not unreasonable and dangerous? On what planet is that? Wasn't it a Democratic administration that gutted welfare, sending untold numbers into poverty? Didn't virtually all Democrats in congress vote in favor of this bloody war for oil and empire? Aren't all Democratic politicians actively engaged in preserving the status quo of greed-fueled corporate hegemony over all of our lives? I guess the "failure" of anarchists, according to this particular partisan liberal, has been to cut through the bullshit to see and tell the truth. Political animals of all stripes hate the truth when it doesn't fit heir agenda. [Yes, obviously, the Republicans are worse. But if a Democrat is put into the White House, the best that can happen is that some of the most egregious wrongs might be rectified, while the overall conditions of injustice and suffering will continue to worsen.] Of the responses on Infoshop, I think this was my favorite: "I don't care if liberals think we're fluffy, scruffy, cute and cuddly rebels anymore than conservative bed-wetters think we're terrorists hell bent on murder or Stalinists. Their opinions are both irrelevant, if slightly amusing, but what's important is that we just keep on doing what we're doing. At times, it may be politically strategic to let them believe whatever they want." In case anyone reading this doesn't already know, anarchism has nothing to do with the bomb-throwing chaos and lawlessness that it is so often painted as being. Anarchism is not the absence of any organization or discipline: its basis is voluntary self-government and mutual cooperation. And while many anarchists don't disavow any tactics, including the possible use of violence, I'm not aware of any anarchist in America who has ever conducted an action that attempted to harm another human being or animal. Oh, but wait a minute: why do these stupid mischaracterizations make me bristle? I am not an anarchist. Repeat. I swear! I think an anarchist society is not really one that I would want to live in. I simply don't trust my fellow humans to do the right thing in a situation of casual interconnectedness, one in which everyone is personally responsible for mutually providing for her neighbor's needs and rights. Not that there is any possibility that an anarchist society will come into being [yeah, I said it; and it isn't like I don't get enough hate mail already], so it's really just an exercise in ideological supposition. As far as political constructs go, the best I would personally hope for is to live in a humdrum social democracy run by bored bureaucrats, in which everyone is doing at least somewhat okay and the worst excesses are regulated away: a system so bland and uninspiring that no one would be moved to murderous impulses to either preserve the status quo or overthrow it. But, of course, even that society -- an ideal which is the equivalent of a deep a sigh of resignation -- is nowhere near the horizon. So where does that leave us? Well, it leaves us to make inroads, challenge the lies, spread true facts, rattle the complacent, stick a finger in the eye of our oppressors, make the rulers uncomfortable, and build real alternatives, even if small, to the cruelty and coldness of the present system. And nobody does that better than anarchists. No one has ever gotten anywhere by trying to ingratiate themselves and their cause to the powerful. That's why reformist movements for social change are just so damned depressing. You don't beg for crumbs from the people who are trying to crush you. Either you challenge them or you just go do something else, like create your own alternative institutions. Or both. Of course, I personally have done none of this, certainly not recently. Writing a blog is a pretty lame substitute for doing something real. No offense to other bloggers; it's just a personal feeling. If I don't feel disgusted with myself and thoroughly ineffectual I just don't recognize the person in the mirror. When I was in Manhattan on Sunday with half a million other people who have a conscience, I saw somebody I used to know. I knew her well, actually. We were friends. But I didn't say hi to her. She was on a bike, so I told myself I didn't want to flag her down. I felt stupid, hopeless, and defeated. She'd been in Palestine, standing in front of tanks. Then I saw her again, on foot, but again I didn't talk to her, and she didn't see me. Through a chain of friends and acquaintances, we had three kids stay with us one night who had hopped freights and hitchhiked across much of the country to be here. I used to know a lot of squatters and train-hoppers, so it's not a lifestyle that I particularly romanticize. But again, seeing them was like being reminded of something that is easily within reach and yet so impossibly far away. [I fixed the Comments script to this entry, so they should work now. 9-7-04] "::"::"::"::"::"::"::"::"::"::"::" ^^^ September 2, 2004         Drawings of My Neighborhood, and One of the Kitchen [asfo_del]                 =<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>= [Continue to August Archive]